Topic: work product

The Obama Justice Department has dropped all pretense of acting in a lawful, transparent mode with regard to the New Black Panther case. In a letter responding to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the department in essence asserts: we don’t have to give you anything we don’t want to. And for this proposition, they cite not a single statute, regulation, Office of Legal Counsel opinion, or court decision. That is because there is none that would support the continued stonewalling.

Joseph H. Hunt of the Federal Programs Branch asserts that the “Department has designated Assistant Attorney for Civil Rights General Thomas E. Perez as the only Department witness to testify on its behalf before the Commission.” On what basis are they withholding percipient witnesses — including the trial team attorneys? Hunt doesn’t say. They just don’t want to. And Perez joined the department after the New Black Panther case was dismissed, so he really knows very little about the circumstances at issue. Yes, that is why he is the designee.

Hunt also makes clear that Perez is going to refuse to answer questions “concerning internal deliberation or other confidential matters.” Citation? None. Rationale? None. They don’t want to, I suppose.

Hunt writes in conclusion (with my comments in brackets):

Finally, we do not believe that the Commission’s subpoenas and requests override the well-established confidentiality interests in these types of materials that are integral to the Department’s discharge of its law-enforcement responsibilities. Thus, as we do in responding to congressional committees conducting oversight, we have sought to provide information to accommodate the Commission’s needs to the fullest extent consistent with our need to protect the confidentiality of the work product of our attorneys. [This is nonsense, by the way, since there is no attorney-client privilege between the executive branch and Congress; the American people are the “clients.”] The President has not asserted executive privilege, nor do we believe the President is required to assert executive privilege [because? citation?] for the Department to take appropriate steps to protect the law-enforcement deliberative confidentiality interests [now he’s just making stuff up] in this context. For the same reasons, we do not believe it is appropriate to appoint a special counsel. [The reason is circular — because the department thinks it doesn’t have to, it won’t appoint a special counsel to enforce the commission’s subpoenas. Yeah, no conflict of interest there, right?]

This is abject lawlessness, Nixonian in contempt for legal process. The Obama-Holder Justice Department is convinced that the executive branch can declare itself immune from scrutiny. The commission might choose to challenge the Justice Department in court, or wait for Congress to flip control and let a Republican majority subpoena the records and testimony. In the meantime, the Obama administration remains the least-transparent administration in history.

The Obama Justice Department has dropped all pretense of acting in a lawful, transparent mode with regard to the New Black Panther case. In a letter responding to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the department in essence asserts: we don’t have to give you anything we don’t want to. And for this proposition, they cite not a single statute, regulation, Office of Legal Counsel opinion, or court decision. That is because there is none that would support the continued stonewalling.

Joseph H. Hunt of the Federal Programs Branch asserts that the “Department has designated Assistant Attorney for Civil Rights General Thomas E. Perez as the only Department witness to testify on its behalf before the Commission.” On what basis are they withholding percipient witnesses — including the trial team attorneys? Hunt doesn’t say. They just don’t want to. And Perez joined the department after the New Black Panther case was dismissed, so he really knows very little about the circumstances at issue. Yes, that is why he is the designee.

Hunt also makes clear that Perez is going to refuse to answer questions “concerning internal deliberation or other confidential matters.” Citation? None. Rationale? None. They don’t want to, I suppose.

Hunt writes in conclusion (with my comments in brackets):

Finally, we do not believe that the Commission’s subpoenas and requests override the well-established confidentiality interests in these types of materials that are integral to the Department’s discharge of its law-enforcement responsibilities. Thus, as we do in responding to congressional committees conducting oversight, we have sought to provide information to accommodate the Commission’s needs to the fullest extent consistent with our need to protect the confidentiality of the work product of our attorneys. [This is nonsense, by the way, since there is no attorney-client privilege between the executive branch and Congress; the American people are the “clients.”] The President has not asserted executive privilege, nor do we believe the President is required to assert executive privilege [because? citation?] for the Department to take appropriate steps to protect the law-enforcement deliberative confidentiality interests [now he’s just making stuff up] in this context. For the same reasons, we do not believe it is appropriate to appoint a special counsel. [The reason is circular — because the department thinks it doesn’t have to, it won’t appoint a special counsel to enforce the commission’s subpoenas. Yeah, no conflict of interest there, right?]

This is abject lawlessness, Nixonian in contempt for legal process. The Obama-Holder Justice Department is convinced that the executive branch can declare itself immune from scrutiny. The commission might choose to challenge the Justice Department in court, or wait for Congress to flip control and let a Republican majority subpoena the records and testimony. In the meantime, the Obama administration remains the least-transparent administration in history.